OH HEK HOW vs REPUBLIC 29 SCRA 94

Facts:

Petitioner Oh Hek How having been granted naturalization through his petition filed a motion alleging that he had complied with the requirements of Republic Act No. 530 and praying that he be allowed to take his oath of allegiance as such citizen and issued the corresponding certificate of naturalization. The Court of First Instance of Zamboanga del Norte issued forthwith an order authorizing the taking of said oath. On that same date, petitioner took it and the certificate of naturalization was issued to him. The Government seasonably gave notice of its intention to appeal from said order of February9, 1966 and filed its record on appeal among the grounds that the oath was taken prior to judgment having been final and executory.

Issue:

- Is the oath valid

- Whether or not a permission to renounce citizenship is necessary from the Minister of the Interior of Nationalist China.




Held:

First issue:

The order of February 9, 1966 (oath-taking) had not — and up to the present has not become final and executory in view of the appeal duly taken by the Government.

2^nd Issue:

It is argued that the permission is not required by our laws and that the naturalization of an alien, as a citizen of the Philippines, is governed exclusively by such laws and cannot be controlled by any foreign law.

However, the question of how a Chinese citizen may strip himself of that status is necessarily governed —pursuant to Articles 15 and 16 of our Civil Code — by the laws of China, not by those of the Philippines. As a consequence, a Chinese national cannot be naturalized as a citizen of the Philippines, unless he has complied with the laws of Nationalist China requiring previous permission of its Minister of the Interior for the renunciation of nationality.

Section 12 of Commonwealth Act No.473 provides, however, that before the naturalization certificate is issued, the petitioner shall "solemnly swear," interalia, that he renounces "absolutely and forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate" and particularly to the state "of which" he is "a subject or citizen." The obvious purpose of this requirement is to divest him of his former nationality, before acquiring Philippine citizenship, because, otherwise, he would have two nationalities and owe allegiance to two (2) distinct sovereignties, which our laws do not permit, except that, pursuant to Republic Act No. 2639, "the acquisition of citizenship by a natural-born Filipino citizen from one of the Iberian and any friendly democratic Ibero-American countries shall not produce loss or forfeiture of his Philippine citizenship, if the law of that country grants the same privilege to its citizens and such had been agreed upon by treaty between the Philippines and the foreign country from which citizenship is acquired."